Friday, 28 Sept 2012
My wife (Betsy), my daughter (Madie) and I set out for Port Canaveral yesterday morning on the roughly 2 hour trip from our place in Tampa. As you can imagine the "are we there yet" excitement of a 6 year old (seven next week), was pretty much none stop until we finally arrived at about 1pm for a 4pm sailing. I didn't figure I was going to start my Disney cruise line 101 in the parking lot, but after talking with a few of the port authority staff, a couple of the tips I received were worth the early arrival. Hope they serve you well. Cheers for now!
1. When you drive into the Disney terminal area to drop off your luggage, the rest of your party should go inside and start the check in procedure right away, so no time is wasted while the driver parks the car. This did end up saving some time, as they were at the front of the check in line by the time I got there.
2. While parking you have the option to pay the normal rate and park in Disney's covered garage a little bit further away with 3,000 others, who may all very likely be ahead of you upon exiting at the end of the cruise (all of whom are stopping at the toll both to pay), or you can pay $20 more up front, and park in the outside parking lot right beside the terminal, avoiding the 45-60 minute wait time when it's over. I figured out of all of the stuff that I am likely to be over paying for while at sea, choosing that option was probably money well spent.
Once meeting back up with the family (in the first line up), I almost immediately got to appreciate the time we had saved by pre-registering online for on board children's activities as well as our shore excursion to swim with the dolphins. Although the lines would more than likely be much longer during peak season, the experience itself was great and not much different than checking into a busy hotel.
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